'Stranger Things' star Joe Chrest says that the parents finally get 'more involved' in season 4

• "Stranger Things" star Joe Chrest told Insider that the parents are "more involved" this season.
• Chrest plays Nancy and Mike's frequently clueless father Ted in the show.

Joe Chrest, who plays father Ted Wheeler in "Stranger Things," said that the new season of the show sees the parents of Hawkins' favorite child superheroes getting "more involved" in their kids' struggles.

Set in the 1980s, "Stranger Things" follows the supernatural occurrences that emerge in the Midwestern town of Hawkins, Indiana. Spearheded by Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and her psychic powers, the show's gang have had to battle recurring threats from a parallel world known as the Upside Down in previous seasons. In season 4, a new threat called Vecna from the Upside Down once again terrorizes the town.

Ted — who's the father of Mike, one of the show's central characters — is relaxed at best and hapless at worst, frequently oblivious to the bizarre occurrences happening around his children.

"While the supernatural world is still very much a part of this, to me, things are getting way more real and the parents now, we're more involved collectively as a community," Chrest, who's played Ted since the show first premiered in 2016, told Insider during the red carpet premiere of "Stranger Things" earlier this month.

The actor added that the parents "all collectively sense danger falling upon our kids" that's "a little darker" and "a little more real-world danger."

"Because they're not kids anymore. They're becoming more mature," Chrest continued. "We're aware very early in the season and now can act upon it, but that's as much as I think I should probably say."

In prior seasons of the show, the children's parents typically haven't been aware of what their kids were up to until it was over, with the exception of Winona Ryder's Joyce Byers, who spent the show's first season feverishly searching for her missing son Will (Noah Schnapp) and remained subsequently engaged in Upside Down-related threats after his rescue.

"It seemed to me that in the other seasons all hell is breaking loose and then, at the end, we all just come running in like, 'Oh, that happened? What the hell? Stuff going on underneath the mall?'" Chrest told Insider.

The new season sees the Hawkins squad scattered to the far reaches not only of the United States but Russia as well. Following chief of police Jim Hopper's apparent death at the end of the third season, Joyce relocated to California with her sons Will and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), as well as Eleven.

Meanwhile, Hopper (David Harbour) himself is somewhere in Russia, while the rest of the gang — Mike, Dustin, Max, Lucas, Steve, Nancy, and Robin included — remain behind in Indiana.

Season 4 of Netflix's "Stranger Things" premieres on Friday, May 27.